Jing et al. (2026) Atmospheric aridity drives functional reorganisation and resilience loss in global forests

Identification

• Journal: Communications Earth & Environment
• Year: 2026
• Date: 2026-09-10
• Authors: Peiqing Jing, Zhenfeng Shao, Deren Li, Xiongjie Deng, Peng Fu, Jinlong Chen, Zihan Lu, Yuankun Wang, Jinyang Wang, Siyuan Wang, Xiuwen Zhong, Xiongwu Xiao, Qingwei Zhuang, Xiwei Shen, Xiran Zhou, Sifan Wu, Neema Simon Sumari, Ashraf Mahmmood Dewan, Tsehaie Woldai, Orhan Altan
• DOI: 10.1038/s43247-026-04040-7

Research Groups

• The State Key Laboratory of Information Engineering in Surveying, Mapping and Remote Sensing, Wuhan University, China.
• Environmental Change Institute, School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford, UK.
• School of Plant, Environment and Soil Sciences, Louisiana State University AgCenter, Baton Rouge, LA, USA.
• Institute of Ecology, College of Urban and Environmental Science, Peking University, Beijing, China.
• Department of Geography and Geographic Information Science, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA.
• School of Architecture, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, NV, USA.
• Harvard Center for Geographical Analysis, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA.
• School of Environment and Spatial Informatics, China University of Mining and Technology, Xuzhou, China.
• Department of Computer Science and Operations Research, University of Montreal, Montréal, QC, Canada.
• College of Natural and Applied Sciences, Sokoine University of Agriculture, Morogoro, Tanzania.
• School of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Curtin University, Perth, WA, Australia.
• School of Geosciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa.
• Department of Geomatics Engineering, Istanbul Technical University, Istanbul, Turkey.

Short Summary

A global analysis reveals a widespread divergence between forest productivity (GPP) and resilience, where rising GPP co-occurs with declining resilience in approximately 34% of global forests. Rising vapour pressure deficit (VPD) is the primary driver of this resilience loss.

Objective

• Investigate the drivers and consequences of the productivity-resilience divergence in global forests from 2001 to 2021.
• Map the global extent of the productivity-resilience divergence and quantify how functional coupling among GPP, EPE, and WUE is reorganised as resilience declines within these divergent regions.

Study Configuration

• Spatial Scale: Global analysis at a spatial resolution of 0.5°.
• Temporal Scale: Analysis period from 2001 to 2021.

Methodology and Data

• Models used:
  • FLUXCOM-X dataset for ecosystem carbon and water fluxes.
  • GOSIF product for solar-induced chlorophyll fluorescence (SIF).
  • GLASS v60 product for leaf area index (LAI).
  • TerraClimate dataset for vapour pressure deficit (VPD) and root-zone soil moisture (SM).
• Data sources:
  • MODIS NDVI product.
  • ERA5 meteorological reanalysis.
  • OCO-2 soundings.

Main Results

• The productivity-resilience divergence affects approximately 34% of global forests, where rising GPP co-occurs with declining resilience.
• Rising VPD is the primary driver of this resilience loss.
• Weaker GPP-EPE coupling was found in boreal forests, while GPP-WUE coupling followed a different pattern: VPD directly strengthened this coupling in tropical and boreal forests, but weakened it in intact forests.

Contributions

• This study provides new insights into the mechanisms underlying the productivity-resilience divergence in global forests.
• The findings highlight the importance of considering both productivity and resilience when evaluating forest ecosystem health.
• The study's results have implications for forest management and conservation efforts, particularly in the context of climate change.

Funding

• This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 91837202).
• The authors acknowledge funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the project "Forest Resilience" (Grant Agreement No. 101002855).

Citation

@article{Jing2026Atmospheric,
  author = {Jing, Peiqing and Shao, Zhenfeng and Li, Deren and Deng, Xiongjie and Fu, Peng and Chen, Jinlong and Lu, Zihan and Wang, Yuankun and Wang, Jinyang and Wang, Siyuan and Zhong, Xiuwen and Xiao, Xiongwu and Zhuang, Qingwei and Shen, Xiwei and Zhou, Xiran and Wu, Sifan and Sumari, Neema Simon and Dewan, Ashraf Mahmmood and Woldai, Tsehaie and Altan, Orhan},
  title = {Atmospheric aridity drives functional reorganisation and resilience loss in global forests},
  journal = {Communications Earth & Environment},
  year = {2026},
  doi = {10.1038/s43247-026-04040-7},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-026-04040-7}
}